Turkey Sacks 10,000 Civil Servants In Further Crackdown

October 30, 2016 12:38 GMT

Selahattin Demirtas, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), speaks at a protest on October 27 against the arrest of two mayors in the predominantly ethnic-Kurd city of Diyarbaki for lleged links to terrorism.

Turkish authorities have dismissed over 10,000 civil servants in an ongoing crackdown over the July failed coup attempt.

Thousands of government employees, mainly from the Education, Justice, and Health ministries, were among those removed through a new emergency rule decree published on the Official Gazette late on October 29.

Fifteen media outlets, almost all of which reported from the largely Kurdish southeast, were closed by the decree.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said the targeted media are believed “to have spread propaganda” for the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Tens of thousands of people have been dismissed or suspended from government jobs since July's failed coup, while more than 32,000 people have been arrested in connection with the coup bid.

The measures have led to international concern.

The Turkish government accuses U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the coup.